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CM/ECF to Transition to PDF/A

The Judiciary is planning to change the technical standard for filing documents in the Case Management and Electronic Case Filing (CM/ECF) system from PDF to PDF/A. This change will improve the archiving and preservation of case-related documents. Courts currently accept PDF/A documents. However, a target date for requiring that all new documents be filed in PDF/A has not been set. Some common questions about the change are answered below. For questions or comments, contact the PACER Service Center by telephone at (800) 676-6856 or email at pacer@psc.uscourts.gov.

PDF/A is an International Standards Organization (ISO) standard document format. The standard has been published for almost five years and is available in the current versions of all major word processors and scanning systems. It is a subset of the PDF standard which excludes those PDF features that give rise to concerns about the ability to archive documents.

PDF/A offers a cost effective and efficient solution that assures that electronic records are preserved far into the future. The change from PDF to PDF/A will improve the ability to archive documents and comply with requirements of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

A PDF viewer such as Adobe (or the PDF viewer you currently use) should already have the ability to view PDF/A documents. You can test your ability to view PDF/A documents by clicking here. This document is in the PDF/A format.

Microsoft Word 2008 for Mac cannot create PDF/A documents, but can
create Word documents that can be converted to PDF/A using a PDF
writer such as Adobe. In addition, Mac users can install OpenOffice,
which is available for free, and use it access and save the Word
document in the PDF/A format.
Click here
for OpenOffice settings for PDF/A.

Newer scanners (generally those manufactured after 2004) allow users
to directly create a PDF/A. Users with older scanners can use a
conversion tool such as Acrobat 9 to convert scanned documents to PDF/A.
Click here
for more information.

Both are acceptable for CM/ECF. PDF/A-1a requires structure in a document and is best to use for electronic documents. PDF/A-1b does not require structure in a document and is best to use for scanned documents or documents where the structure is unknown.

The effect on hyperlinks will vary depending on the specific PDF
writer used to create or convert the document. Many PDF writers
create PDF/A documents with active ("clickable") links. Other PDF
writers produce PDF/A documents with active links only if the links
are unmasked (i.e., the link is a full URL and not a shorthand word or phrase
that represents the full URL). Furthermore, different programs that
convert PDF documents to PDF/A handle hyperlinks differently.
Click here
for more information on hyperlinks in in PDF/A documents.